Finally, An N97 eBook Reader That Isn’t Broken [ZXReader]

The Mobipocket eBook reader used to be my reader of choice. That is, until their Symbian programmer disappeared like a fart in the wind (or so I’ve heard), leaving behind nothing but a half-finished S60 Fifth Edition port. One that can’t even exit fullscreen mode without a complete reinstall. To put it mildly, I think it sucks.

You can move the info/progress bar around the screen - I have it set to the right side.

So the only thing left is an eBook reader called ZXReader, and it’s actually an impressive piece of work. You can customize almost every facet of the eBook display, from changing the fonts and colors to things like screen margins and the location of the info bar. Navigation is neat, too: the app divides the screen into touchable regions that can activate different functions – by default, the top portion of the screen is used to move back a page, and the bottom portion to move forward. But you could also change it to left, center, right, and have each section perform a different task. It’s so far and away from the crap that is Mobireader S60 v5 Beta Unsigned that it’s amazing. Did I mention it’s free?

ZXReader provides a wealth of customizations. Lots of good stuff here.

There is a catch, however.

And that catch is – ZXReader is only compatible with two types of file formats: regular text files and .fb2 files. Text files are fine, but unfortunately don’t have support for things like bold headings and the like. Also, they tend to run the gamut in terms of quality since nothing’s standardized.

Enter FB2. FB2 is apparently a newfangled ebook format based on XML and created by some Russian programmers. It’s not a very popular file format, and finding software for it was a pain in the butt. An application called FictionBook Designer can open up a bunch of different ebook formats (html, doc, rtf, pdf, lit, pdb, rb, xml, and best of all prc). Yep, that’s mobipocket’s file format. One of the help files does say that the prc file format is a little wonky (not the exact words) and you’re probably better off converting the prc to html with MobiPerl. I personally tested a couple prc->html->fb2 conversions and it worked fine.

Unpack everything into one directory. You’ll see a bunch of executable files, the only one that you’ll need is mobi2html.exe.

Create a shortcut to mobi2html.exe. A quick way to do this is to click on the file, hold the Alt key, and, while still holding down the mouse button, drag the mouse away. That will create a shortcut to mobi2html.exe.

Drag your prc file on top of the shortcut you just created and let go. You should see a command prompt box open up, output some garbage text, and close. It’s done!

Check the “unpacked” folder in the directory you placed MobiPerl and you should see your html file. Now plug this file into Fiction Book Designer, and follow the rest of the directions above.

You can copy your ebooks to any directory on your memory card. In zxreader, go into the main menu -> Library -> Options -> Add file, and then browse to your ebooks directory. Remember, ebooks must be in .FB2 or .TXT format for them to show up, so PDFs and PRCs will not work.

After you download it to your N97, run the File Manager application (Menu -> Applications -> File Manager). Then navigate to the folder where you saved it and tap on the file twice – it should let you install it.